Trying to define SketchUp Limitations

sketchup guide jody

Thanks for the responses folks, there is some great info so far. Same with the questions, I'm also trying to hone in on what i'm asking for as well. At the end of the day I want to have a set of boundaries for new users to help get them rolling, ideally it will help make better best practices as well. If I get my drothers then we might also someday see a dialog in SketchUp when you start to "over do it" with your imports or exports. I think the new SketchUppers would benefit by the dialog that says "You're about to import a 45Mb DWG, please be aware that this could take a while or possibly fail. Are you sure you wish to continue." Or something akin to that.

This is a VERY hard list to build as there are so many variations that make the lines more blurry. I very clean DWG might import fine, or a DWG from AutoCAD may perform better than a DWG from Revit. I think we could get a loose set of guidelines that accounts for this. Here is my completely off the top of my head version of the questions I asked at the beginning.

1. What is the largest SketchUp file you've created? Would you consider it to be efficiently made (a healthy file?) Could you make it smaller? What aspects did you "write off" and just not usable in that large file? How many edges did it have? Faces? Materials?
*- 120 Mb SKP created or edited (these are customer files I've worked with)

Some Yes & Some No
Usually Yes
Shadows, Materials, Some Styles, some Layers
Largest I've seen 2 million+ edges (forgot faces, I always look at edges as my complexity gauge)
Hundreds*
2. What is the largest file you've imported into SketchUp? What kind of file was it? Did you have to alter the file any before you got it to actually import into SketchUp? Did you have to do much clean-up on the file once it was in SketchUp?
*- DWG/DXF - 30-40 Mb // JPG/PNG - 5-10 Mb // TIFF - 10 Mb
Before
DWG I don't create DWG anywhere but SketchUp but have worked with many DWG that needed cleanup before its used, usually to remove BIM data
Raster - I often try to reduce the raster image file size before importing, or crop it to just the data I need
After
DWG - I always clean up after import, removing unnecessary lines, fill faces, purge or combine layers
Raster Images - nothing to clean up, just position*
3. Whats the largest file you've exported from SketchUp? What kind of file did you create? How long did the export take? Did it export successfully on the first try or did you have to adjust your file or export settings some before it worked?
*- Largest exports are always animations though I have no hard numbers. Generally a complex animation is 100Mb+ and takes 1+ hours to export. When I can't export I start turning off export settings before altering the file.
Usually if edits need to be made to the actual file its because the SKP is large/complex and "messy" (bad layer usage, possible flakey geometry such as tesselated faces or unnecessary geometry disconnected from the main drawing.*

To be continued...

mitcorb

Let me ask something in another way:
In Sketchup, if 0,0,0 is the center of the model universe, what are the outer limits, if any, of the theoretical sphere of usable space. I assume the inner limits are 1mm in any direction.
I suppose there are qualifications or dependencies to my question, that I am unable to imagine at this time. If there are, please point them out.
Thanks,
mitcorb

the.pjt

Sketchup uses Only one cpu core . if you have a 4 core cpu ,it only uses 20% cpu in video rendering etc ...

It cant handle large textures .it cant hold many textures and it crushes when you use big images in many materials .
and you cant edit it easily using wireframe metod

we need a better built in Texture tools and uv mapper .plz put plugin : UV tool inside the SU .we have problems with Rendrers .

cant hold many many geometry , and too slow .

when you have some plugins , toolbars become a big problem . and if you just install a new one you should rearrange all toolbars . Please Use tabs for putting toolbars and arenging theme like MS office .

extremly needed : a built in support for curve lines and curved faces ( NURBS . etc ... ) just like layout splines .

some plugins should be builtin like Join Push pull .

a cache or compling metod (if possible) for ruby codes . startup takes very very time if you have some plug-ins . windows prefetch metod makes it start a bit faster but ...

uses these advanced tools in SU pro . and leave SU free ... the free SU should be simple and easy every time .

remus

i think hard numbers about performance limitations are whats being looked for here, not areas where SU could be improved (this is well covered already.)

Edson

@remus said:

i think hard numbers about performance limitations are whats being looked for here, not areas where SU could be improved (this is well covered already.)

agreed, remus. let's not turn this important thread into something else.

jopsa2

personally, I think Sketchup's limit is extremely high, it's only a question of letting it compute with more than one core.

in regards to file sizes, I have a 100Mb file that works perfectly, with 1M edges and 0.5M faces. It was the result of importing four 20Mb CAD files (topography curves), and letting the sandbox work on it overnight.
I wouldn't say it's touching Sketchup's limit, it orbits fine and behaves very well. I even exported some jpegs and video from it. No ceiling there!

(this video, btw)
YouTube - maqueta valle del aramaio
[flash=480,385:qlsgd4g6]http://www.youtube.com/v/X8arhdTT7-I&hl=en_US&fs=1[/flash:qlsgd4g6]

I definitely learned how to optimise with the Pantheon model, 8.7M edges, 4.7M faces, and the file size never went over 24Mb (until I started texturing). The size actually dropped as I went along and kept optimizing! About exporting, no problem doing video and 9000pix jpegs, other than time.
The file is still workable, orbiting is fine, even with materials switched on. The answer is definitely to make everything a component (86 component definitions, 5000 component instances), and to use layers if it slows down.

Not sure this is what you were asking, it's always fun to brag about whose is bigger

scott_lowe

Hey great question, I hope I can help some.

Firstly, the better the computer & network you are working on, the more pleasant your modeling will be. That being said you need to organize your model well.

To do this:

Use the Organizer! (window>organizer)
Using it will remind you to...
Create groups and components! Everything should at least be grouped or component-ed.
Nest your groups and components! If you have your organizer open and have to scroll around when all of your groups/components are collapsed, then you are not nesting enough. If you are making a 5 story building, then all of your exterior walls should be in an exterior group/component and all of your furniture should be in a furniture group etc. If you are doing a 10 story building then maybe do each floor in a component but things that continue through like elevator cores and plumbing will go in its own component. It is nice to use components for these things since you can export each into its own sketchup file and have a different person responsible for each floor and then reload the component in sketchup. (use the organizer and right click on the component to see the reload option.)
Layers = BAD! Very different than autocad but layers will only confuse you. Have a layer for radically different things that appear in multiple groups. Examples include plants and people. You might have Existing plants be in your Existing Site component and New plants be in your New Site component, but you don't want to see then when you are modeling because they get in your way. To do this effectively; put all geometry in default layer and then put the larger group/component in a layer.
Texture at the end! Use the paint bucket sparingly. Use solid colors when possible and model textures, ie. a modeled shingle wall will look way better than a bitmap one. Do not model detail for things in the background. Use tranparency sparingly as well (if you make a window, make it 2 planes rather than 1 prism, that is 2 faces per window vs 6).
Turn off the sun! The sun will always slow you down. Only turn it on when you are ready to make your images and videos.
Purge unused!
Turn on wireframe to zoom around faster in big models and to step through your walkthroughs.

I hope that helps. I have opened another person's file that was 80+mb and it took like 20 mins to open and save which was a real bummer (turn off autosave if you have this issue). I created a very similar model for a different part of the project that was half the size on disk and opens and saves in less than 5 mins. I think in this way sketchup has a bit of a deadly curve where the bigger your file gets it gets more annoying to deal with at a much quicker rate.

McGyver

This is very interesting topic! I was thinking of somehow asking this same question but could not think of a way of asking it properly. I've been trying to figure out if SU's crummy performance on larger models(hardly medium size to most modeling programs) is due to my crummy computer or something inherently quirky about SU. I love SU. I also love making big complex models. Two great things that don't go great together... I can only hope that future releases of SU will address this issue. For me no matter what conclusions this thread comes to I will probably not have much of a resolution to this issue since my computer is older anyway. Oh well. I have learned one thing others may want to consider... Since the second biggest burden to SU files for me is large textures... I've learned to use colors as place holders for textures until the model is pretty much complete... then I use the Repaint plugin by Smustard to swap out the colors for textures... you still have to have a rough idea when the model might choke, but it helps somewhat.
Repaint: http://www.smustard.com/script/Repaint

tomot

@unknownuser said:

Thanks for the responses folks,........ SNIP...........To be continued...

With all due respect Jody, you are gathering meaningless information, information only useful for constructing Excel spreadsheets. Why don't you import any file and see if SketchUp can rotate it. I'm currently waiting for SketchUp to rotate an object from a plan view to an elevation, (90 degrees) its been now 2 hours and not much is happening, its as if Sketchup is stuck.

The imported file has the following
Vertices 61,932
Faces 116,176
SU import size after save is 9.55MB

as you can see it does not take large files for SketchUp to grind to a halt.

thomthom

@tomot said:

The imported file has the following
Vertices 61,932
Faces 116,176
SU import size after save is 9.55MB

That should be no problem for Sketchup. As with of 7.1 I've managed to work with models of 1.000.000+ faces.

Some possible reasons comes to mind:

Hardware acceleration is turned off
Underpowered graphic card
Shadows, Profiles or other Edge effects are on (these are killers)

tomot

@thomthom said:

Some possible reasons comes to mind:

Hardware acceleration is turned off

Underpowered graphic card

Shadows, Profiles or other Edge effects are on (these are killers)

I can assure you its None of the above, but perhaps its Vray related

thomthom

If you want I could try it on my machine.

hibernian56

The major limitation is that it is SLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Did you get that Google? You have written the ONLY program that manages to bring my Macbook Pro to it knees. Well done. I have spent maybe 30% even 40% of the last 5 hours of my life watching the spinning beachball of doom.... Honestly if Bonzai gets a little bit more stable (i.e. doesn't crash every 5 minutes) I'm gone.

Your latest release, 7.1 took nearly a year and in my opinion is only Beta quality. Without the 3rd party plugins SU would be dead and I'm sure 99.9% of your users wouldn't bother due to the default tools being old hat.

The model I'm working on is a simple house, on a SMALL site. But place 2 trees and four plants and voila... beachball. Orbit, beachball. Pan, beachball. Zoom, beachball. Move component, major beachball.

How about this for a new tag line?

SketchUp Pro, Waiting is half the fun.

remus

Can we please try and stay on topic? As i previously mentioned this thread is to try and define sketchups limitations, not just repeat the fact that they exist for the hunderedth time.

sketchup guide jody

Thanks everyone for this great feedback. I'm still pumping it into my document and rolling along. I'm blown away by the 8.7m edged model and and am happy to hear that you're still a fan of SketchUp while working at that size! Most users (as has been seen since that post) don't approach that size and get frustrated well before they get there. In your case, Jopsa2 it looks like avoiding materials for as long as possible is a win, and then patience as you allow SketchUp to render. I'd think Sandbox tools could benefit from Multi-Core if you allow that it still has to bake, and of course the same for output to video or raster.

The changing over time in this thread really illustrates that its a hard question to define and to answer. The tips for modeling smarter are further proof to that and in their own way define limitations as well. Every post has been helpful so far (even those that wander into dislike of SketchUp.

Right now I'm looking at 3 key areas that need definition to help new users:

File Limitations, these are things like file imports and exports, what you add to or take away from the process.

Usage Limitations, things that are generally handled with smarter modeling. You might call it the educational limitation as not everyone has these problems and many power users find a way to overcome them.

Functional Limitations, SketchUp just doesn't create circles without segments, it won't model well under 1mm, and it really doesn't like models that are miles in scope.

Some of these are constant problems that we're aware of and constantly trying to fix, some of these are the result of SketchUp being so useful that people want it to do more than it was ever intended to do, and some of it is new information that its hard to see in a QA lab. I'm hoping to build some test case files based on this feedback and may do a new post in the near future with those files to see about getting a performance test from users of varying computational power or skill sets.

Until that time, I'm still reading and still quite appreciative of this data. Thanks everyone for your feedback so far. (c:

McGyver

I was just thinking... Wouldn't it make sense to some degree to create or choose three files/models(medium, large and very large) for people to download and test and then report the results. Would this not create a control group by which to gauge performance, since there probably is a great deal of difference on how different machines and setups would handle those models? If this is listed somewhere in this thread or was asked already, I missed it so sorry if this is redundant.

thomthom

Define "large"

Large file size?
Lots of geometry?
Large in size - width,length, depth?

All these has their different restraints in SketchUp.

A model with little geometry can be much slower to handle in SU if you have lots of big textures.

And Style effect also has a great impact on the performance of a model. Shadows, transparency, Edge Profile and edge colours all contribute to a model that's slower to handle.

McGyver

@thomthom said:

Define "large"

Large file size?
Lots of geometry?
Large in size - width,length, depth?

All these has their different restraints in SketchUp.

A model with little geometry can be much slower to handle in SU if you have lots of big textures.

And Style effect also has a great impact on the performance of a model. Shadows, transparency, Edge Profile and edge colours all contribute to a model that's slower to handle.
Well, I suppose I did say that in a profoundly stupid manner. As to how to quantify the "size" of a model I would not know... perhaps I should of said:
"Models that would appear to someone who possesses extensive professional knowledge of the workings and capabilities of SketchUp and is also capable of taking into consideration the general capabilities and general computer hardware as possessed by the average to professional user, and in light of such consideration so judge said models as being inherently of Medium, Complex or High Complexity based on a reasonable predefined set of characteristics such as file size,number of faces,number of groups,layers,textures of moderate size or other criteria based on whatever reasonable characteristics and or model statistics would allow some method of quantifying or allowing to establish a general frame of reference by which to judge the performance of computers of different operating systems,set ups and general capabilities all using the software herein known as SketchUp."
or something like that.... I don't know... I only have about 15-20 brain cells working at one time and they can be pretty lazy at times.
I just figured it might help to some degree if one could use "clean" pre-made models of different predefined "levels" to judge their system's performance and thus contribute those findings to whatever database is being used to establish average or reasonable performance limitations...
I now realize that was a pretty dumb idea.

thomthom

Not dumb, no. It's just that defining a "large" model is a bit unwieldy and not an easy thing as there are so many factors in play. And I find that asking that question brings forth different answers for different people.

michaliszissiou

SU has a magical UI. But the truth is that it produces terrible topology. Have a map there and be in trouble sooner or later.
I imported (as 3ds) some heavy sculpt models from blender with UV textures (2048x2048). So I had a 800k scene in SU. No beach ball on a mac pro, shadows on, orbiting was real time animation like. Because... these meshes had good topology and UVs. I tried a ~400k modeling in SU, some arches, holes etc. I use my own components only. Orbiting became heavy, beach ball now. I also noticed that thomthom's UV toolkit made my life easier, especially this frontface to back etc. Especially when exporting. Still waiting a ruby for loopcuts, or I missed something here?
And please google team, you can't ask some one to pay for an obj exporter. This is not a pro element.
An idea: Start modeling as in other 3d apps. Stop this continuous push pull, do as many individual components as you can. One texture to one component. The wrong use of pushpull and paintbasked is killing SU in the end.